Case study · October 2026
A calm skincare brand, built from brief to store.
A skincare client came to Resolut, and Resolut started the project. This page follows it from the first brief to a working store and its first emails: the brand, the rules, the website, the store, and the email programme. Each part links to the real thing or shows a screenshot of it.
This project is conceptual. The logo and the colour scheme are approved. The images of the model and the products are AI-generated placeholders. They are for reference, to guide the client and the photographer brief, and will be replaced by final photography. Prices, shoppers and orders are invented, and nothing is for sale. The one test order used Shopify’s test payment, so no real money moved. No email has been sent to anyone.
What the client asked for
- 01A brand book
- 02A design system
- 03Campaign management
- 04A Shopify storefront
What Resolut suggested
- 05Klaviyo for email and lifecycle messages
- 06Mixpanel to measure what people do
Added to the scope because the store needs a way to keep in touch and a way to learn. Klaviyo is chapter 05. Mixpanel has not been started.
01 · Brand
Calm, simple and honest.
Everything started with a brief: who it is for, how it sounds, and what it will never do.
Busy working women, aged 35 to 44, in the United States. They want a short, calm routine and no homework.
Their skin feels tight or dull, then shiny by the afternoon. They find too many steps, heavy products, and big promises in tiny print. About ten minutes in the morning, ten at work, maybe ten at night.
Three moments, one hero
A calm start
Daybreak · coming soonThe Midday Reset
Pause from apartéWind down
Dusk · coming soonThe idea: fewer decisions, not a tiny shelf. Pause, a midday serum at $28 (invented price), is the front door. Daybreak and Dusk are proposed and not built.
Voice and refusals
Elevated and poised.
Calm, plain, a little wry. Short sentences. It talks to one person.
Six things it refuses.
How the brief was made
- 01The client answered the brief: audience, annoyances, tone, price, and what the brand refuses.
- 02Research was added by Resolut. Every number carries a source, a date and its limits. None are results of this project.
- 03Gaps were named, not hidden. Sun care is left out on purpose, because sun wording makes a product a drug under US rules. Competitor overlap was not checked.
- 04The client approved it at a gate before anything was built.
02 · Brand book and design system
One for people. One for building.
The brand book says who Aparté is and how it behaves. The design system holds the exact colours, type and parts, so every page comes out the same.
Brand book
16 sections: audience, voice, logo, colour, type, photography, packaging, the website, the store, and the claims rules.
Design system
Logo, colour tokens, type scale, spacing and live parts with code. Light and dark. Every text pair checked for contrast.
The tokens in the design system are what the website and the store actually use. Gold appears on Pause only. Aqua is never text on white.
03 · Website
Pause first, with her at the centre.
One page on the same teal and type. It opens on Pause and the approved line, shows the four small steps, and keeps Daybreak and Dusk small.
The photography brief
The pictures of the woman and the products are AI-generated placeholders. They give the client and the photographer an idea of the mood, the light, the styling and the everyday moments to capture. Final photography will replace them.
- 01The hero. One minute for your skin, in the middle of the day. A collage of her day around the serum.
- 02Four small steps. Toner, essence, serum and moisturiser, each with its labelled photo.
- 03Honest by design. Labelled concept, asks search engines not to index it, and uses cosmetic language only.
04 · Store
Four Pause products, one collection.
A Shopify development store. Each product has its labelled photo, size and an invented concept price. The photos are AI-generated placeholders for reference, until final photography.
Pause
Midday serum · 1 fl oz (30 mL)
Pause Toner
4 fl oz (120 mL)
Pause Essence
1.7 fl oz (50 mL)
Pause Moisturiser
1.7 fl oz (50 mL)
What was set up
| Piece | Detail |
|---|---|
| Store | Shopify development store, United States, USD. Password page on, so only people with the password can see it. |
| Products | Four active products with labelled photos, SKUs and prices, tagged Concept. The other placeholders stay archived or draft. |
| Collection | “Pause”, with all four products. |
| Storefront notice | The announcement bar says “Concept store, not for sale”, and the home page has a header image. |
| Test checkout | One full checkout with Shopify’s test payment: Pause plus $8 shipping, $36.00 total, paid. Made-up shopper, no real card. |
05 · Email and lifecycle
Fourteen emails, each written to be read in a minute.
Resolut suggested Klaviyo so the store can keep in touch after the first visit. This chapter shows what was set up and designed there. Ten automated flows are built and every one is still a draft. Nothing is live, and nothing has been sent to anyone.
What was set up in Klaviyo
| Piece | Detail |
|---|---|
| Brand look | Logo, five brand colours and the teal pill button saved once, with email defaults, so every email matches the brand without rework. |
| Customers | 64 invented profiles. 60 shoppers have no email address, so they can never receive anything. 4 test profiles use the only inboxes approved for testing. Each carries nine Aparté facts: life stage, skin concern, routine time, birthday, sign-up date, first-order date, order count, days since purchase and waitlist interest. |
| Life stages | The 60 shoppers are spread over nine stages: new subscriber 10, first-time buyer 10, repeat buyer 9, browser 8, cart abandoner 6, fading 6, lapsed 5, VIP 3, waitlist 3. |
| Lists | Two lists: “demo shoppers, never send” (60) and “demo inboxes, 4 allowed” (4). |
| Practice events | Three events for one invented shopper (started checkout, viewed a product, placed an order), loaded as history so no automation could fire. They let the cart, browse and review emails be previewed with real data. |
| Emails | 14 email templates in the Aparté look. All are built, and none has been sent. |
| Shop link | The demo shop (its own page, shop.html) sends three events to Klaviyo as a visitor browses: viewed a product, added to cart, started checkout. Each carries the brand name “aparte” so it cannot trigger another brand’s flows in the same account. Orders are not sent from the browser, so no real purchase can be faked. |
| Discount codes | Three concept codes for the birthday, anniversary and browse emails. They are invented and work nowhere. |
After the imports on 20 October, Klaviyo's free plan showed 5 of 250 active profiles and 0 of 500 emails used.
The ten flows
| Flow | Starts when | Emails |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | Someone joins the approved inbox list | W1, W2 |
| Cart | Started checkout, and no order follows | C1, C2 |
| Browse | Viewed a product, and no order follows | B1 |
| Browsed 3+ times | Viewed a product several times, and no order follows | BR1 |
| How to use, Review, Refill | After an order | H1, H2, R1, F1 |
| Birthday, Anniversary | A date on her profile | BD1, A1 |
| Waitlist | Joined the Daybreak or Dusk waitlist | WL1, WL2 |
Every flow carries two safety gates: only profiles marked as allowed to receive demo sends can enter, and the shop-event flows only react to Aparté events. The follow-up emails also stop if she places an order. A real shop event was tested end to end: a click on the shop page appeared on the test profile in Klaviyo within moments.
One honest limit: in Klaviyo a discount code’s expiry is a fixed date, not “seven days after the email”. The browse code therefore lasts one year, and the email says so. A true short window would need a rolling code on the Shopify side.
The 14 emails
| Moment | Picture | |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | W1 Welcome to aparté W2 Four small steps, about two minutes | Lifestyle photo and the four bottles (kept, because a new subscriber has seen nothing yet) |
| Cart | C1 Your pause is waiting C2 A few questions, answered | C1 shows what she left behind; C2 the serum |
| Browse | B1 Still thinking about Pause Serum? BR1 No rush, with a one-year code | The product she looked at |
| How to use | H1 How to use your Pause H2 Making midday a habit | Toner; essence |
| Review | R1 How is your Pause? | What she bought |
| Refill | F1 Running low? | Serum |
| Birthday | BD1 Happy birthday, with a 14-day code | Lifestyle photo |
| Anniversary | A1 A year of midday pauses, with a 14-day code | Serum |
| Waitlist | WL1 We will write when it is time WL2 Early thoughts | Moisturiser; lifestyle photo |
The pictures are the five AI-generated placeholders from chapter 04. Emails that react to something she did show her own product, so they do not repeat the same photo or the same four bottles.